catman529 said:
Would like to see them roaming any time now...
GPS-collar and trail-camera studies both display how most bucks expand their travels just before breeding starts, and some bucks even leave their normal range and temporarily move to a "rut range" that is completely separate from their normal range. In any given location, these range expansions and shifts will occur at the same time each year, and will be timed to the local peak of breeding (shifts occur a week to two weeks before the local timing for peak breeding).
For those running trail-cameras during the season, this behavior will manifest itself as the sudden appearance of "new" bucks on camera at the same time of year each year, and often these "new" buck appearances will display amazing precision, occuring on almost the exact same dates each year.
What this means to the hunter is new bucks will suddenly become harvestable in their hunting area. This is often why, just before and during peak breeding, hunters kill bucks they've never seen before or that had never been trail-camera photographed before.
Most commonly, from trail-camera data, I will see two major peaks in "new" bucks appearing on a property, the first peak almost exactly 10 days prior to the beginning of peak breeding, and the second large peak occurring all during the 7 to 10-day window of peak breeding.
If you can determine when your local peak breeding occurs each year (and the best anecdotal evidence for peak breeding is the week or so long period when all scrapes suddenly stop being reopened/reworked), you should be able to determine exactly when these new bucks should appear in your hunting area.
